Hate

Takashi Haguro hated this world.

He was sure that the world hated him too.

He was a 12 year boy born into a relatively poor family that fell into a category known as the working poor; they never made enough to live comfortably but also made just enough to be denied any government assistance.

To Takashi, the magic of the holidays was only something that you could look at behind a tv screen—especially Christmas, the holiday he was the most fond of. In his eyes, it was the one that contained the most magic behind it, even though he had never properly celebrated it.

He couldn’t remember the last time he received a present from anyone, not even from his parents. It wasn’t something that any of them could afford anyway, but Takashi knew that. What he wanted out of Christmas wasn’t the presents, but rather, it was the company of his parents.

Nothing filled him with envy more than watching the other children stroll hand in hand with their parents as they walked through the snow-filled streets. Nothing made him feel more empty.

He didn’t care that some children received the latest gaming consoles or that the more fortunate ones received luxury items such as cars or expensive jewelry. He only cared that even the less fortunate ones had someone to eat fried chicken with on that special day.

But alas, even accompanying their child was too expensive for Takashi’s parents. His mother was a food courier and his father was a factory line worker. Since Christmas was not a nationally recognized holiday in his country, neither of them could take the day off for him, especially not his mother, who had it the busiest that day.

He hated how she delivered food to everyone but him on Christmas. It seemed that she was at every house except for theirs. The irony was so blatant that even someone as young as himself could notice it.

His parents knew that their relationship with their child wasn’t the greatest, but in their minds he would learn to appreciate it one day. After all, Takashi was what most people would call ‘gifted’. He excelled academically, and even skipped two grades back in elementary; and was now taking advanced courses after testing highly on his junior high’s entrance exams.

His genius was always praised by others but for him it was one of the things that he resented the most. Like many other things, it contributed to his evergrowing loneliness and hatred for the world.

Skipping a grade meant dealing with people who were older than him; people who looked down on him because he was younger. The age gap made it harder for him to connect with his peers. His golden status of being the kid who skipped a couple grades placed him on a podium that he didn’t want to be on—a podium that made it harder to make friends than it already was.

The circumstances around him had transformed him into a lonely person, and he blamed the world for giving him those circumstances to begin with. His bitterness grew to parallel that loneliness, and it was worsened by another factor that played a major role in his life.

His family had moved cities a total of three times. His father was moved around from factory to factory, and his mother who was quite flexible with her courier work, decided to follow him each time. They never knew the toll it took on their child.

Each time they moved, any few friends that Takashi had managed to gather up would have to be replaced. Even though the size of his friend group would shrink each time he moved around in both grade level and city, he always kept attempting to make friends in order to fill up that emptiness his parents left him with.

By the third time he moved however, he had given up entirely on making friends.

He didn’t want to be hurt anymore; he was tired of saying goodbyes. He had figured that if he had no friends to lose, he had no one to feel loss for. It was a type of self defense that he had learned in order to make living his life just a bit more bearable.

So what does this bitter, sad, lonely, 12-year-old kid do to make up for all the sadness he feels in life? The answer is actually not so different from what middle-aged adults do when they feel the same way; he drowns himself in the world of video games and stories.

They were curated to appease such people after all: worlds where nothing ever goes wrong, and everything that does can be fixed—a concept much more appealing than the bleakness of reality—and Takashi was no different in being attracted to it.

Instilled in him was the idea of adventure and exploration, and he longed to live a life where he could roam faraway lands, fight monsters, and experiment with magic. But he knew reality wasn’t as beautiful as the ones told in the stories and games he played. There were no dragons to slay, no intriguing places to explore, and no magic to cast—only endless days that all looked the same. Every path ahead of him seemed already blocked, like someone had decided his future before he even had the chance to dream one up for himself.

And so although he was a genius, he never really saw the idea of a future for himself. He excelled academically not because he a future in mind, but because that was the only thing he had going for him. Not a day passed without him wishing he’d been born into some other world instead.

“If only my world had magic.”

“If only I had parents that cared about me.”

“If only I had friends that would stay by my side forever.”

“I would then not be such a bitter, lonely, person.”

Yes, the child was self-aware of his bitterness, but he felt bitter about everything nonetheless. He truly believed that had he been born into a world that favored him, he would be a much better person.

If only, if only, if only, the child wished as he walked his way back home from school.

In his wishful state of mind, he decided to stop by the library to pick up some books for the day. It was something he often did, and it was common for him to spend most of his day at the library until it closed.

Takashi goes his usual route—a shortcut through an unfinished construction site whose project had been temporarily placed on hold. He didn’t know why it had been cancelled, for it wasn’t his job to know. All he cared about was that it provided an excellent shortcut to the library he headed to everyday, and since the construction site was typically safe, he always took it.

Unfortunately for him, today was not a typical day.

The temporary fencing placed at the of the unfinished building used to contain supplies became loose over the days the site had been abandoned. The workers thought it was no problem since people weren’t supposed to enter the site anyway: as indicated by the no entry signs that our child had chosen to ignore. Today, it had become loose enough to break, and all it took was a tragically timed gust of wind to give the heavy metals stored at the top a great enough force to collapse.

Takashi would only be able to hear the sound of creaking metal before his whole world turned black.

It took a minute, but he quickly realized he was dead. He was very smart, as you know, so he was very self aware, but he was still just a kid, and kids liked to ignore warning signs, especially ones caught in a state of delusion like Takashi.

Even though he knew it was his fault for ignoring the signs, he still cursed the world for letting that happen to him. After all, the temporary fencing didn’t have to break that day at that exact time. In fact, is it really too unreasonable to consider that perhaps the world did hate this child as much as he hated it back?

Nevertheless, the concept of his death was too much for him to bear, and, true to his age, he felt the urge to cry. Also true to his age however, he knew he needed to calm himself down, and so he began to try to imagine the things that made him happy.

Like winter.

Winter made him happy, because that’s when Christmas was. Even though he couldn’t really celebrate it and it made him feel envious, it was the one time of the year where he was least bitter about everything. He also liked the snow, and the wintry forests he remembered living next to in one of the homes he had.

He began to imagine them—their fresh scents, the earthiness of the bark, and the icy wind filling his lungs—he used the nostalgia as a catalyst to hold back the overwhelming sadness.

It was at this moment however, that he realized that these scents and feelings of coldness in his lungs were beginning to feel a bit too real. And when a cold draft of wind hit his cheeks, he opened his eyes to see a beautiful sight.

Above him, an ethereal aurora danced across the night sky, and amongst their translucent lights, the stars seemed to sparkle gently behind them.

Only one thought crossed his mind.

Is this the afterlife?